


Dancing

by annanWaters



Series: Pas de Deux [2]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Iron Man (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, HBIC Pepper Potts, Internalized Homophobia, New York City, PWP, Pepper and Tony are unstoppable, Queer Sex Work, Safe Queer Sex, Safer Sex, Sex Worker Character, Sex Worker!Natasha Romanov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:21:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21763675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annanWaters/pseuds/annanWaters
Summary: Autumn, and they're back in New York. Tony's kept his head on this trip-- mostly-- but when Pepper sees a familiar face onstage, she may not be able to keep hers.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Natasha Romanov
Series: Pas de Deux [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1213746
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Dancing

_October, 1992_

  


"We're going to be late, Tony." She'd finished dressing half an hour ago, Happy had been downstairs in the car for ten minutes, and Tony was still fussing about which watch to wear and how loose his tie should be. They were back in New York, an extended deal with the latest merger and acquisition, and for some reason Tony had decided that while they were in town, they should be seen to do things. New York things, he called them, like visiting Times Square and going to Coney Island and volunteering in a soup kitchen. Admittedly, she may have planted that last idea, but this one- attending the debut of a dance piece by what the New Yorker called 'an exciting new talent in the performance world' which Pepper was fairly certain translated to 'a woman Tony is hot for'- was all his. So, of course, he was making everyone wait for him. Tony always liked to make an entrance, but she seriously doubted that his personal circus would be appreciated by the actual performers. Marching into his room, she grabbed the brushed titanium watch that she liked (and which matched the subtle stripe of his suit), put his tie firmly back in place, and hauled him out to the elevator.

"Hey, can't a guy be a little late for his own party?"

"It isn't your party, Tony, it's a dance recital."

He pulled a face, adjusting his tie again in the reflection on the wall. "Okay, first, 'recital' makes it sound like someone's grade school thing, and it is not. This is an exciting and challenging performance piece designed by an artist who's put in her time both in traditional and contemporary dance circles in New York and abroad. I know this," he flashed a grin at her, the one that always made her smile back, "Because I read the dress-rehearsal review in the Voice this morning. And second, it kind of is my party, because half of this thing is being funded by one of those grant committees you insisted I set up to get rid of my money, patronize the arts, and generally make life more interesting."

"Tony." Usually, she trusted his aesthetic instincts, but it was too easy to connect the dots on this one. "Tell me you didn't lean on the board to give this woman a grant because you wanted to get into her pants. I will genuinely think less of you."

They hustled toward the waiting car, Pepper grabbing a handful of her skirt and pulling it clear of her knees. Tony held his reply until they were buckled in, then gave her a hurt face. "Of course not, Pep. That would lack finesse, not to mention require me to spend time and effort trying to manipulate the stuffed crows who sit on the performing arts committee. Where did we find those people? They remind me of maiden aunts. Not mine, mind you, because I'm sure I don't have any, but the species in general."

"I can't imagine anyone related to you being a maiden anything."

"Touche. Keep it steady a minute, okay, buddy?" Tony pulled a bottle of scotch out of the mini bar, offered it to her. She waved him off, so he poured himself three fingers and tossed it down. In the mirror, she could see Happy shaking his head, but the set of his forehead told her he was smiling. She was smiling, too: Tony was infectious when he was happy, and that's all there was to it. As much as he'd never admit it, as much as he still associated the city with his father and his childhood, Tony loved New York. It was fast, so much faster than LA, and cramped and noisy and absolutely packed with people feverishly doing things, and the buildings rose against the sky like a challenge, and the bridges slung themselves across spans which had been impossible until they suddenly weren't anymore-- he had a thousand words of praise for the city, and she knew why. New York was meant to be his home, but he couldn't take the climate, so he stayed in sunny, easy, hollow California. Pepper herself was divided on the issue.

"Two blocks, boss." Happy gave him a warning to get the bottle out of his hand, these days: there had just been too many pictures of Tony in some compromising position or other, so the two of them had conspired to rehab his public image a little. Tony went along with it, mostly.

"Roger that." Another shot, and then bottle and glass were tucked away and Tony was putting his best face on. Enthused, alert, but not manic; sober, engaged, but not bored. Just the sort of face to walk into a concert hall wearing. Pepper put her own game face on- pleased, bland, a poker face for every occasion- and a studiously expressionless Happy opened the door for them, already checking with his two guys over the radio. There would be one at the rear, watching the exits, and one inside prowling while Happy sat two rows behind them at the end of the aisle. Merchant princes, even ones as beloved as Tony Stark, didn't have casual nights out.

A few flashbulbs popped, but thankfully this event had enough interesting faces from the city already in attendance that they weren't overwhelmed. There would be one or two pieces in the tabloids the next day, speculating about her and Tony again, but for the serious papers they'd just be a two-line note: "also in attendance," their names and probably the grant connection. Low-profile, just the way she and Happy liked it, and if Tony was a clever boy he could get out the back with the choreographer without anyone noticing. Pepper had a certain amount of faith in his ingenuity.

It was a good crowd, a mix of patrons like them, the hip in the arts, and various personalities with some stake in the performance, but it wasn't the Met Gala. They blended in fairly well, Tony in his slick steel-on-gray Armani suit and her in the semi-formal Vera Wang, geometric green patterns with a silver shrug, somewhere between the tuxes and the leather. Post-punk and graffiti were still inflecting the style of the cutting edge, she noticed, before accepting a program and walking with Tony to their seats.

When the choreographer came on stage to introduce the piece, Pepper could understand why the woman had caught Tony's eye. He didn't have a type, exactly, but there were things he tended to gravitate to when he wasn't just out hunting tail. Passion, determination, composure, and a waist he could wrap his hands around were some of those things, and this woman had all of them. She'd often thought that the reason he'd never made a serious play for her, other than the fact that he never had a big sister and needed one desperately, was that Pepper could look him straight in the eye barefoot: if it weren't for the lifts he typically wore in his shoes, she could see clear over his head in heels. As it was, she was generally the taller of the two.

The woman made a gesture toward a bow and walked off; the house lights went out completely, spots flicked to life over the stage, and the show began. It was very modern: Pepper paid attention to the way the dancers moved and the positioning of the lights, letting the soundtrack exist at the edge of her awareness, knowing that if she tried to engage with the music any more than that she'd probably find it grating. Still, the performers were fascinating, moving with almost mechanical precision as they worked through the piece. It started slow, the figures jerking from one strange posture to the next, before they gained momentum and began moving more fluidly, crossing the stage, interacting with each other.

There were five of them, three men and two women, dressed identically in black leggings and black shirts, hair pulled back or slicked down, their flat white makeup concealing their expressions. She spent some time pondering the dehumanizing aspect of their costume, so obviously meant to impose a uniformity on the performers and thus draw attention to the performance, partially because Pepper was the sort of person to think about that, and partly because she'd need to have something to say to the choreographer before Tony whisked the woman away to an assignation. The dancers tracked back and forth under increasingly frantic lights, and when one of the women slid down from a lift and spread herself over the stage, Pepper's breath caught. She arched away from the floor, once, twice, and then was pulled to her feet and carried away, but the image burned and wouldn't leave.

In that moment, she'd looked just like Talia. One of Pepper's own assignations, another in a long line of beautiful people Pepper had hired to sleep with her. It wasn't that she couldn't get laid on her own, Tony's intimations to the contrary, it was that she didn't have time for the dating scene. She tended to meet only the kind of people who traveled in their mercenary circles, most of whom were highly unappealing: added to that the fact that Pepper barely had time to attend to her own emotional well-being, never mind anyone else's, and a relationship was simply not feasible. Not to mention problematic from a public relations standpoint, difficult at best in the current social climate, and absolutely nightmarish as soon as the picture included Tony. So Pepper had a tendency to relieve her stress by hiring an escort for the night. Not too often, and under strictest secrecy: the agency she used was admirably discreet. The last time they'd been in New York, though, she'd been in the mood for the local fare, and had stayed out all night with a girl she'd picked up in Alphabet City.

_Talia._ Pepper fought a blush, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth as she tried valiantly not to let her body relive the evening. She'd bent a couple of her usually ironclad rules that night, blaming New York for stirring her up and making her want to go shopping on the street, to take the girl's invitation and stay with her until morning. It had been almost six months before, and she hadn't had too much time to dwell on it, but here they were back in New York with Tony getting a little out of hand and Happy looking at her like he was afraid she was going to go off the rails, and suddenly there was nothing better to think about than the narrow hotel bed she'd slept in and the girl who'd slept beside her. The sex had been amazing, far beyond memorable, but the release had been more than physical: a strange interlude, for the night it had seemed almost as if she'd stepped sideways into some other life.

Attention again on the stage, Pepper was firmly back in her own life, planning ahead to the afterparty for the vogue in the crowd and how Happy would cover Tony peeling off while she carried on to the hotel. He'd have to stay through the meet-and-greet, and would probably enjoy being a little splashy at the party: it wouldn't be hard to organize a distraction so they could go their separate ways without undue attention. She'd stay on a little longer, working the room so that people wouldn't immediately notice his absence, but not too long. There was a meeting at half past noon that she needed to be sharp for, whether Tony graced them with his presence or not. The calculus of running their lives occupied most of her attention for the rest of the performance, eyes transmitting visual data back to a mind too absorbed to really decipher any of it.

She came back in time for the denouement, a fascinating and complex moment which violently underscored the themes of isolation and dehumanization, which is what she would say to anyone who asked her about it later. Dance had a tendency to get silly in this city of performance art, but this piece, while often chaotic and not terribly coherent, had gotten its message across clearly. As the dancers fell into their final attitudes, though, there was something in the arch and shudder of one of the women- and Pepper wasn't even sure that it was the same one- that brought Talia rushing back into her thoughts. The lights went out, drenching the theater in darkness, and then came back slowly to the drumming of applause. Tony, of course, was on his feet and whistling like they were at a ballpark, but Pepper stayed seated until the dancers came on to take their brief bows.

Then there was the absolute zoo in the lobby, and then Tony was insisting on dragging them backstage to the green room- even his charm couldn't get him any closer- and then the crew finally came out and the whole sea of people moved to the vast emptiness which was the back of the house. Drinks were set up on the loading dock, a very New York touch, people shaking hands and saying complimentary things about the performance.

Pepper saw her first, and when she did she thought she was hallucinating. Makeup wiped off, hair loose, wearing something dark and casual, there was no mistaking her: circulating with the other dancers, that was Talia. Too composed to freeze or panic, Pepper decided to get a little more visible, chatting up the stagehand serving drinks, laughing at the jokes her fellow patrons told, giving Talia a chance to see her, a chance to prepare. There was no way for them to get out of this without meeting, that ship had sailed when Tony procured the invitation, but she could buy them time and space.

It worked: when Tony appeared, drink in hand, to drag her over to where the creative types were congregating, there was no sudden stiffness or moment of doubt.

"Genius, meet genius. Not me, obviously," he flashed Charming Smile Number Three, "You both know me, you lucky devils. Pepper, may I present Ophelia, without whose hard work we wouldn't be here tonight. Ophelia, I'd like you to meet Pepper Potts, my assistant, right hand, secret financial officer, and all those great things, without whose tireless labors I wouldn't be anywhere at all. Seriously, she's great."

Ophelia looked a little taken aback by Tony's usual manner, but Pepper only smiled and shook hands. "I enjoyed the piece immensely." She was about to continue, to make some comment about the themes or motifs, but Tony was already moving on, introducing her to the director, the theater manager, and then the dancers who were drawn together in a defensive huddle. Typical of the man, he included them in one broad wave, as if the performers were furniture or assembly machines, necessary to the end result but not in themselves remarkable. Pepper took the time to at least acknowledge them as individuals.

"I'm sorry," she stepped a little closer to Talia, who lingered over her drink as the rest of them shuffled away together, "I didn't quite catch your name." This wasn't the first time she'd encountered a former escort in a social setting, though the circumstances were unusual. The girls from the agency were one thing: they were expected, they had a way of dealing with this sort of thing. Talia was an unknown variable, but she wasn't going to let that stop her.

"Natasha." If the girl was at all out of sorts, she didn't show it, though a raised eyebrow might have signaled her amusement with their situation. The soft accent that Pepper remembered was still there: if an affectation, it was a consistent one. A memory of Talia's tattoos shivered inside her, attesting to her origin. "Pepper, was it?"

"Tony's name for me. He does it to everyone who spends more than ten minutes around him. Everyone calls me that now, but my driver's license still says Virginia." Why she felt compelled to say it, she wasn't sure, but she did.

"Virginia." The girl drawled out her name, each vowel separate, as lazy as she'd been that night in April, and it was all Pepper could do not to flush. "It's a very pretty name."

"Thank you. Natasha has a certain charm." Unsure what she wanted out of this, Pepper couldn't quite let it go. The memory of seeing Talia- Natasha- naked for the first time replayed itself, and she felt a flush of satisfaction at the knowledge that she'd been right: the girl was a dancer, after all.

"I'm glad you think so." Natasha toyed with her drink, glancing around the room, before bringing her eyes and crooked smile back to Pepper. "Are you two going to the party after this?"

"Hmm?" Pepper looked up from her study of the girl's mouth. "Oh. Of course, though Tony will probably make a scene and then vanish with your choreographer. He's gone to a certain amount of trouble to get this far with her, including sneaking out the last three nights. I was impressed." Something about the way she said 'you two' made it imperative that Pepper clarify how emphatically not a couple she and Tony were.

"Ah. So that's why she rushed this week's rehearsals. Interesting."

"Well, you didn't seem to suffer from it." It was the polite thing to say, and it had the added bonus of being true.

"No. In fact I'm grateful. There's very little as bad as being over rehearsed, and with a debut," she shrugged, eyes on her drink. "Let us say she might have pushed too much without something to distract her."

"I don't think I'll mention that to him. His ego gets enough exercise as it is." Pepper realized that her drink was empty, but found herself loath to go get another, in case Natasha didn't follow. "Are you? Going to the party later, that is."

"Yes. Tomorrow is another working day, but my call isn't until five, so I have time to recover."

"Lucky. There's a meeting which Tony will skip, so I'm going to have to run it. No hangover for me."

"That's too bad."

Pepper, watching the way Natasha stood, the way her eyes tracked around the room and over every line in Pepper's face, realized that she'd spent about as much time talking to the dancer as she could: eventually, someone would notice, and that someone would be Tony, and tomorrow or next week or four months on, he'd bring it up and never let it go. She smiled, not her party smile this time, and stepped back just a bit. "I'll let you get back to working the room. See you at the party?"

"Yes. See you again, Virginia." She turned away quickly, flowing back into the slowly thinning crowd. For her part, Pepper located the seething bubble around Tony and insinuated herself into it, smiling and nodding and shaking hands all around.

"Pepper, there you are." Tony had that calculating look in his eye. He continued smiling, leaning closer to her, but his attention was elsewhere. "I was getting worried. And bored. Party?"

She checked his watch. "Happy should be in place by now." Some over-dressed individual felt the need to shake her hand. "Yes, lovely to see you," Pepper murmured, then turned so she faced the door. "Split the room, meet you at the car?"

Shoulder to shoulder, Tony kept his smile in place but muttered out of the corner of his mouth, "This is why you're my favorite."

They cut the room like the professionals they were, swinging wide of each other on their way to the exit. Pepper picked up Happy's inside man on her way through the foyer, knowing that Tony was coming up the other side. The two of them had this down to a science, aware of each other even with the crowd around them: it had been like that since the beginning, a total sympathy between them which was almost alarming. It was what made them a formidable team in business, and what kept them alive the rest of the time. Pepper walked out behind an elderly couple, the body man peeling off and stopping behind the car, facing out: she opened the door and slid in, barely settled before Tony ducked in behind her and the guard knocked on the trunk. He jogged next to the car until they pulled up to the alley, then both guys got in up front with Happy.

"Are you taking Happy or Wyatt?” She decided to cut to the chase- even with New York traffic, they only had so long to sort this out.

Tony, to his credit, didn't bother pretending not to understand. “Wyatt. Happy will drive you back to the hotel when you're ready to go."

Pepper nodded. Tony had, finally, accepted that he wasn't allowed out without at least some protection, and absent Colonel Rhodes and his Sidewinders, discreet Wyatt and his sidearm would have to do. "That works."

"I looked over the new terms this afternoon." Tony cracked open a bottle of club soda, took a swig, and continued, "Push them around a little on the stock revaluation, they're trying to gouge us, and I don't want them thinking they can."

"I noticed that. What are we prepared to give away? Anything new?" This was the last chance they'd get to coordinate before the meeting they both knew Tony wouldn't attend: at this point it was mostly comparing notes.

"See if they'll come down ten percent on the stock- we're going to pick up the pensions and benefit structure, hang that in front of them and see if they bite. If they give us what we want, we're prepared to add a little liquidity to the buyout offer." Tony pulled his tie off and opened his collar: Pepper dropped the shrug from her shoulders and changed into the other shoes she'd tossed in the car, shaking her hair down and leaning back in the seat.

They'd purposely kept the cash offer minimal, preferring to leverage the company's undervalued stock to their advantage. There was some margin to play with, to sweeten the deal for the guys looking to deploy their golden parachutes, if they got what they wanted on the stock price. Pepper pursed her lips, accepting Tony's offer of scotch this time. "Two, three percent?"

He nodded. "No higher than five. If they still get hinky, mention that I wasn't impressed by their third quarter and I think their R and D reports are optimistic."

"The figures in the profitability projections do seem a bit inflated." That was one way to put it- she didn't have Tony's technical background, but she knew everything there was to know about guerrilla accounting. Someone had been told that they needed to look good, fast.

"You saw that too, huh?" Brown eyes narrowed and twinkled at her: of course she had, and of course he knew she had. "Trust your instincts. I do. We've got these guys on the line, all we have to do is reel them in. Then the buyout goes through, we put our people in at the top, and we never have to see the bad toupee guy or the nail biter again."

She smiled at his description of their CFO and the corporate lawyer they'd been hauling to the negotiations. Both of them were badly out of their depth and compensating by trying to run rings around Stark Industries, tying them up in arguments about subclauses until Tony had threatened to call the SEC and then buy sixty percent of their stock from personal funds to get them to shut up. Fortunately, she'd been the only person in the room when he'd made that particular declaration.

"Oh, and if they give you any trouble, put on those new stilettos- you know, the strappy red ones you picked up when you ditched me Wednesday- and stomp all over their balls."

"What else are they for?" They shared a sharp, pleased smile, and then Happy was pulling up to the curb and they were between Wyatt and the new guy, Vincent, climbing up into the converted warehouse and the party beyond.

The party was, for lack of a better term, very New York. She was sure that half the people there were famous, and that if she added all of them up they wouldn't meet a quarter of Tony's personal net worth. On the east coast, fame did not equal money: at least they didn't act like the LA crowd, who were addicted to their own publicity. In New York, the celebrated didn't shoulder the burden of their notoriety: you either knew who they were or you didn't, and in either case all they wanted was another drink or fifty bucks until Wednesday, or both. Pepper much preferred the New York crowd.

A woman wearing a mylar bodysuit and a chandelier on her head offered her something in a plastic cup, which she graciously accepted and just as graciously dumped over a nearby sculpture, trailing deliberately after Tony. The light was bad enough that no one, she was certain, would ever notice. Sheets of plastic, contractor's walls either leftover from some aborted renovation or added for ambience, scrambled her impressions of the interior space, but somewhere ahead of her were multicolored lights and the distinct sound of Tony making an entrance mingling with whatever the DJ was playing. Pepper held onto her empty cup and ventured further into the depths of the party, beginning to enjoy herself, trying not to search for Natasha; sooner or later, the laws of social thermodynamics would kick in and they'd be circulated together. That would have to be good enough.

"Can I trouble you for a light?" The voice in her ear, so low and intimate compared to the ambient noise of the party, made her jump a little, and Pepper turned toward it, apologetic smile already in place as she made her customary reply.

"I'm sorry, I don't smoke."

Natasha smiled at her from about three inches away, party physics working more quickly than usual, and then tipped her head back ever so slightly. "I didn't think that you did. It's close in here, isn't it?"

"A bit." Pepper felt her smile changing into something a little more predatory, standing just too close to this woman she'd slept with, and even in the scattered, strobing light of the party she could see an answering expression on Natasha's face. Whatever this was, it was mutual, and it was wanted.

The girl stood still, letting Pepper get into her space for a long moment, then took her hand and stepped back in the same movement. "Come closer."

Submitting herself to be towed, Pepper followed Natasha into the crush of the official dance floor, dark under the spotlights, and pressed against her in the crowd. The timer in Pepper's head was still ticking, calculating how long she should stay after Tony left, or if she should leave before; when she could get to sleep, when she'd have to be awake again; but she could ignore that as long as she kept touching Natasha. A corner of her mind, the part that followed the plot in the movies she almost never got to see and tracked the duplicated entries in cooked books, admired the way Natasha danced. 

She had all of the grace that she'd shown on stage, mechanical precision replaced with an enviable sensuality that reminded Pepper of her April performance in the hotel room. If Pepper had a weakness, it was for expertise in action. Witnessing the moment when talent, training, and effort came together in that very human kind of perfection was perhaps the closest she would ever get to love at first sight. It was a privilege, that detached corner remarked, to see both halves in action and know what she was seeing. The rest of her, entranced, enjoyed the moment.

They moved together, hands and hips and shoulders: Pepper at ease in her heels, hands falling just below Natasha's breasts, the girl's hair brushing her shoulder as she leaned back into Pepper. Whatever the DJ was spinning had been reduced to force in the huge space, the experience of noise rather than sound, and Pepper let it throb in her chest as Natasha ground her hips against Pepper's, hard. She couldn't stop her hands from clenching in the girl's shirt then, and she dropped her chin to press her mouth close to Natasha's ear. Let Tony look after himself; let tomorrow come when it would; she wanted to steal all the time she could with this woman.

"Do you want to get out of here?"

The dancer turned in her arms and stared at her, the two of them still in the seething mass, and then her face unfroze and she licked her lips, bringing them to brush Pepper's throat. "Lead the way."

Together, they moved slowly through the press of bodies, unwilling to lose too much contact, still teasing each other. Pepper aimed for the edge of the party, looking for an exterior wall, and found an emergency exit door jammed open with someone's platform boot. She pushed through it, pulling Natasha in with her, into a stairwell: it was good enough.

"Up or down?" The crackling, panting energy in her said _down_ , wanted to run out into the cold night and fall into warm sheets together, but Pepper needed it to be a choice, and not hers.

"Up." It might have been her imagination, but Natasha seemed to make a dare out of her answer.

Hand in hand, they mounted the stairs, quickly discovering that the partial renovations had only sideswiped the warehouse's industrial infrastructure: two flights up, the landing extended out over the former shop floor, a safety rail hastily installed across what must have once connected to a catwalk. Pepper stopped there, almost painfully aware of Natasha's fingers still interlaced with hers. Down below them, the crowd swirled and moved like turbulent water; Pepper drew Natasha close again, wrapping her arms around the dancer's waist and resting her chin on her shoulder. They watched the crowd for a time, watching it eddy around maelstroms of activity, swaying to the throb of the music before Natasha turned and linked her fingers behind Pepper's neck, brushing up against her in all the right spots.

"Come with me tonight." It came out a little faster, a little blunter, than Pepper had intended, moving with and against the woman she held. Natasha's arms tightened, pulling Pepper's forehead down to touch hers, pressing them closer together. Pepper closed her eyes as she felt the other woman's nose brush against hers, and she wondered if Natasha had left hers open, or not.

"Lead the way," she said again.

This time there was no hesitation, just a moment to gather the will to let go of the dancer, and mindful of her top speed in heels Pepper headed back down the stairs toward the exit. Recalling a moving bubble she'd spotted in the crowd, Pepper realized she had no idea if Tony had made his move, but that didn't matter as much as getting out of the building and down to the car. The thought of the car summoned Happy sitting in it, stopped her in her tracks, halfway down the stairs. They had to do something about Happy: he was discreet, to be sure, but she'd always structured her assignations to avoid even his unflappable attention. Reason warred with desire, circumspection with need.

Eventually, reason won. "Damn it." At Natasha's raised eyebrow, she shook her head, lips in a thin line. Pepper wasn't exactly happy with herself, but business was business, and pleasure wasn't. She carried on down the stairs and through an ill-lit corridor, until the exit doors were in sight, then pulled the girl closer to her, until she could bury her nose in the coarse red hair she remembered.

"Wait here." Pepper pulled back, licked her lips. "A cab will pull up after I leave. Get in and," she rattled off her hotel information, "Don't worry about the fare, it's taken care of. When you get to the desk," Happy would have been furious about her telling anyone the passphrase, but she didn't care. Natasha's face was neutral again, the professional mask she'd met in April, and Pepper tried not to be hurt. The girl had good reason, after all; Pepper knew exactly what it sounded like. "The clerk will send you right up. If anyone asks," she almost said 'you're there to see Tony,' but thought better of it. "Ignore them. It's none of their business. _You're_ none of their business."

Slowly, Pepper forced herself to let go of the girl, wondering at the strength of the attraction, and slipped through the doors. Natasha's eyes followed her as she stalked directly to the towncar and let herself in. Happy had the partition down and his radio on when she settled into the back seat.

" We're going back to the hotel. I need a cab sent." She could see him frown in the mirror, but he didn't ask any questions, dialing out on the car phone. She lifted the handset and ordered a car to the party's address, on the corporate account, waiting until the line was dead again before she asked, "Is Tony clear?"

"Left about five minutes ago." He thumbed a switch on the radio, pulling Vince in from his position.

"Okay." With the other security man back in the car, she relaxed slightly. "Let's move."

Alone in her room, Pepper had time to worry that the girl wouldn't come, that any of a thousand factors had changed her mind, and she worried that Natasha was right to refuse. They were in uncharted territory, with nothing declared between them. She wanted Natasha, and she thought Natasha wanted her, but she wasn't sure what it looked like from the other side. It was possible that Natasha thought Pepper was asking for an extension on their previous night, another rented roll with Talia, and in truth Pepper wasn't sure that she wasn't. She didn't know if she was offering those terms again, though, and being caught in that kind of ambiguity made Pepper crazy. Trying to come up with a way to ask, to clarify, without offending Natasha or embarrassing herself, Pepper thought that it might be almost better if the dancer never showed, if she spared Pepper that.

The knock on the door sent Pepper's heart into her throat, but she recovered, checking the peephole and swinging the door open for Natasha.

"Hi," she breathed, stepping back so the redhead could slip past her, locking the door carefully before turning to face her visitor.

"Hi." Natasha gave the place a glance, lights low and the television on to something inane: Pepper looked around for a moment, reflecting for the first time on the difference between the narrow room she'd shared with Talia and the over-priced suites Tony insisted on booking whenever they were in the city.

Uncertainty had become so alien to her that Pepper hardly recognized the sinking feeling as she moved to close the distance between them, taking one of Natasha's hands in her own. "I'm glad you came up."

The dancer cocked her head slightly, reading Pepper's body language, and the masked expression eased a little. "So am I."

Without releasing her hand, Pepper led her into the bedroom, closing and locking that door, too, and drawing Natasha to her body. Neither of them had said anything to give themselves away, treading lightly in this stolen space. Pepper searched for words, for something to say to make it clear what she was asking for, and what she wasn't. When she came up empty, though, all she could do was look at Natasha, hands and eyes running over the curves and planes of her face, her body.

Natasha took her hands and squeezed them, moving them down to her waist, and then ran her fingers up Pepper's arms to her shoulders, stroking over the skin there. Pepper hadn't bothered to change out of her dress, though she'd washed her face and tucked the jewelry away, and she shivered as the girl's fingers brushed over fabric and under it.

"May I kiss you?" Her voice, low and warm, washed over Pepper; the words were a relief, a way forward.

Pepper smiled, relaxing into the touch as she replied, grateful for the offer, "I'd like that very much."

She hadn't been able to kiss Talia, last time: that would have been against the rules. Of course, she wasn't with Talia anymore. This was Natasha, and this was something else, so she bent her head and brushed the girl's inviting mouth with her own. Her lipstick was sticky, her lips were soft, and she pressed close to Pepper as they let the kiss go on and grow deeper. It was slow, tender, and with her hands still on the dancer's waist Pepper shivered a little at the promise in it.

Abruptly self-conscious, stiffening even as she ran her tongue over Natasha's lower lip, Pepper realized that it had been a very long time since she'd been in this position, kissing someone, about to go to bed with her. Long enough, she feared, that she didn't know what to do, how to act, what to say in the morning. There wasn't a script, a plan, they hadn't laid out rules or guidelines: they were just two people in a hotel room in New York, acting on impulse and attraction. It was, for one eternal instant, terrifying, but then Natasha sighed into her mouth and bit, very gently, on Pepper's lip, and it was wonderful again.

Spurred into action, Pepper slid her hands up the girl's back, shoving at the leather jacket that she wore, intent on stripping it from her but loathe to end the embrace. Natasha obliged handily, dropped her arms and let the garment slither to the floor in a jangle of hardware, then brushed her palms against Pepper's thighs on their way back up. The shirt Natasha wore was artistically slashed across the back, and Pepper slipped her fingers in and to the skin beneath, humming with the feeling. Her questing fingers found nothing else: Natasha wasn't wearing a bra. Somehow, Pepper managed to stop herself from tearing the shirt all the way off of the girl, instead scraping her nails up her spine and groaning.

Clever fingers had found her zipper while she was thus distracted, something that Pepper only realized when she felt the cool air on her back. One hand stayed on her thigh, making its way upward, while the other pressed against the bare skin of Pepper's back and encouraged her dress to fall further open. It took more effort than she expected to draw away from Natasha, coming up for air and the space to move: in the low light they stared at each other, all swollen lips and wide eyes, and then Natasha tugged a little at Pepper's dress and it cascaded to the floor; and then Pepper grabbed Natasha's shirt and swept it over her head; and then Natasha was kicking free of her boots as Pepper fumbled with her jeans and they spilled backward onto the nearest bed.

The frantic tangle of their bodies was nothing like that first encounter, all poise and performance, but they sorted themselves out. Pepper peeled the tight pants away from Natasha's legs; the girl wriggled free of them, not wearing underwear either, and grabbed for Pepper's hips. They slid against each other, on top of the crisp cold sheets, and Pepper pulled herself up a little on her elbows to hover just over her companion.

"What do you like?" Pepper surprised herself by speaking, surprised herself more by purring the words with a confidence she wasn't sure she had. But the body pressed into her was familiar, and the hands sliding over her narrow hips were warm and eager, and Pepper wanted this.

"Let me show you." Natasha's hands made it up her back, popped Pepper's bra open, and she kissed her again. The strapless bra, moulded cups more for form than function, lay between them until Natasha brushed it aside and coaxed one of Pepper's hands down over her shoulder to her chest.

Fingertips caught against the necklace that Natasha wore, tugging slightly before Pepper moved with the dancer's urging over her collarbone and down; in the light that filtered in through the curtains, Pepper pulled back and looked at the woman who lay beneath her. It was the same necklace she'd worn six months before, a bead and a coin, and this time Pepper passed over it without comment, instead watching Natasha's face as she traced the swell of her breast and skimmed over her nipple.

The girl stared, looking at Pepper looking at her, until Pepper gave in to her urging and cupped her breast, rolling her nipple under one thumb: those green eyes squeezed closed and Natasha smiled, letting her head fall back into the pillow. Something about that smile relaxed Pepper, washing away the last of her nerves, and her hunger took over. Want crawled up her spine and over her skin, and suddenly Pepper couldn't get enough of the girl beneath her.

Hands occupied, Pepper slid down on the bed, mouth hot and seeking: she kissed, licked, nipped until she found the spider tattoo on Natasha's stomach, and the dancer's legs fell open for her. Thick, blunt lines were faintly raised on the girl's skin, easy for Pepper to follow with her tongue as she rested there. The heat, the smell, was making Pepper crazy, but before she could move again she felt Natasha’s hand in her hair, tugging gently. Looking up, she found Natasha propped up on her elbows, mouth and eyes pensive.

“My last test came back clear,” she didn’t need to say what kind of test, her other profession hanging between them as Pepper waited, “But probably better safe than sorry.”

As much as Pepper would have loved to ignore it, the girl had a point. So she kept her voice even when she replied, “You’re right. Thank you.”

For once, Pepper wanted to give-- and take-- first, her usual appetite eclipsed by a different desire, pulling herself away from Natasha’s cunt and repositioning over her. She straddled Natasha's thigh, smearing herself against it deliberately, and lowered her mouth to the dancer's breast. Her partner's immediate shudder was gratifying, and she allowed her self-control to slip, ravenous until Natasha hissed and arched off the bed. She took that as a signal to ease off, and complied-- mostly. Unclenching her jaw, Pepper ran her tongue all over the other woman's breast, lashing and soothing the inflamed nipple, and then drew it hard into her mouth, sucking in as much and as powerfully as she could. It was good, so good, and it eased something in her that Pepper hadn't even known was tense.

Her watering mouth full, Pepper used her fingers to explore, sliding into wet, swollen flesh. Everything was so slippery that Pepper almost had trouble getting her bearings, but she persevered, coating her hand in Natasha's lust before flattening it against her clit and pressing firmly. With her other hand, she gripped Natasha's shoulder, arm beneath her strong back anchoring them both as Pepper moved her whole hand in time with the twitching of Natasha's hips. Only after ragged breathing turned to moans did Pepper shift her grip so that her thumb could push back the hood of Natasha's clit and her fingers slide fully home.

There was nothing quiet about it this time. Pepper's back arched as she sank her fingers into Natasha's cunt, pure pleasure-seeking reflex grinding her clit against the hard muscle of the thigh beneath her. Her mouth softened around Natasha's breast and her own low groan of satisfaction. Everything felt good, from the tight warmth clutching her fingers to the smooth skin pressed against her breasts to the hand flexing in her hair. Sinking into it, Pepper slowed herself down, trying to focus on Natasha: her breathing, the way she tensed and relaxed, her fingers scratching at Pepper's scalp became her guides, drawing the both of them deeper together. They rocked against the bed, finding their rhythm, and when Natasha's demanding hips bucked into Pepper's hand, she let the girl's nipple slide from between her lips and settled back, giving more strength to the arm that drove her pleasure.

The clenching around her fingers was dangerously delightful, combining with the thigh still between her own to distract her. Pepper opened her eyes to see the tendon in her forearm jump, palm up with the heel of her hand pressing in close, and focused on using the come-hither gesture to make Natasha's hips keep time with it. After that, eyes adjusted to all the darkness money could buy, she watched the way Natasha's ribs expanded as she gasped for air, saw her breath catch and hold as she felt every muscle beneath her tense in sequence. Legs first, ass and thighs tightening and rolling together, then her core, drawing Pepper further in and flexing Natasha away from the mattress; Pepper rose onto her knees, elbow jammed into her own hip for support, forearm straining to press her relentless fingers deeper. Fists in the sheets and shoulders pulled back, Natasha was beautiful pushing toward release. Sweat crept down Pepper's back, prickling at her hairline and upper lip, but she ignored it.

In another moment, her dedication paid off. Her reward pooled wet around her fingers, running into her palm as all of Natasha's muscles spasmed and released; the girl's hips jogged with the force of it, again and again in ebbing waves, and Pepper couldn't help herself. She curved her fingers one last time, just to see her twitch, just to get that last little drop. A little smug, she decided that first, she was glad she'd gotten a room with two queens rather than a single king; and second, there was no need to share the Maxwell House joke that had popped into her head. Instead, she let Natasha's passion run out between her fingers as she withdrew her hand, making shameless use of the bedclothes and finally, finally letting her thighs squeeze.

The girl was glassy-eyed and panting beneath her, but Pepper didn't mind getting started on her own. Muscles still clenching in sympathy with Natasha's shivers, Pepper spread her hands across her thighs, arched her back, and rocked her hips forward. Natasha got the idea immediately, planting her heel in the mattress and lifting her leg to meet Pepper right where she needed it most.

Pepper hissed in satisfaction as she felt Natasha's fingers dig into her ass, lips drawing back in something like a smile. She pressed her tongue against the edge of her own teeth and let those hands pull her forward, until her clit was practically trapped against the muscle of Natasha's thigh, until she had to brace her hands against the wall, until those fingers could spread her wide and tease from behind. Concentrating on the warm pulsing of her clit, Pepper was content to let Natasha take her time, stroking firmly between Pepper's folds and caressing her entrance until she tingled all over.

The grin slowly slipped from Pepper's face, replaced by a frown of determination, lower lip between her teeth as she rolled between Natasha's hands and leg. Just when the tension was beginning to be unpleasant, her body clenching around nothing and her desire running away with her, Natasha's fingers slid in and Pepper groaned.

"Yeah?" Natasha's voice panting in her ear startled her, and when she opened her eyes Pepper realized that the girl had pulled herself up from the mattress.

Not trusting her voice, Pepper nodded emphatically and arched back, favoring Natasha's fingers, then watched a wicked smirk spread across her face.

"Hold on." The dancer pressed close, breasts and stomach against Pepper's, and Pepper wrapped her arms around Natasha's shoulders.

She felt the muscles shift and strain under her hands, against her body, between her legs, and then in a complicated and not entirely dignified manouever Pepper was flat on her back and Natasha was everywhere on top of her. Pepper managed a laugh which turned into another moan as Natasha pushed inside her again, the heel of her hand pressed hard against Pepper's clit and her teeth scraping over Pepper's breast.

"More." An entreaty, a command, a prayer. "Don't stop."

"Don't worry." Natasha did something with the fingers inside her that made Pepper's eyes roll back and her knees draw wider apart. "I won't."

She didn't. Mouth alternating between Pepper's nipples, Natasha hooked one of Pepper's legs over her shoulder, opening her wide and allowing Natasha to sink down in search of the right spot. For a few self-conscious seconds, Pepper realized how exposed she was, spread halfway across the bed in a disordered tangle; and then Natasha's questing fingers found their mark. With a shudder, Pepper ceased to care about anything except chasing her pleasure, driven deep into her body and reveling in it. She felt amazing. It was good. Nothing else had to matter.

They rolled together, Pepper with one heel dug into the mattress and her hands against the headboard, Natasha between her legs, forehead pressed damply against her shoulder and whole body moving in time with the urgency of Pepper's hips. Again and again, Natasha plunged deep and withdrew, fingertips caressing and knuckles knocking against the hidden places; again and again, Pepper drove down to meet her, back arched hard and muscles tightening. With her mouth clamped closed, Pepper's moans turned into something like singing, mixing with the muted sounds of the heavy bed and Natasha's panting to fill the room.

It was good, but it wasn't enough. Aware that she could stay in that perfect desperate state for hours, Pepper wanted more, and she knew how to get it. With an effort, she pulled one hand away from the headboard and fitted it into the barely-there space between her body and Natasha's, sliding her fingers into the spreading well of wetness between her legs and pulling them back to catch her clit at just the right angle. The girl realized what she was doing and shifted to make room, arching herself away so that Pepper could move her hand freely. After that it was only a matter of pressure-- together, apart, constant, rhythmic-- and after that Pepper grinned again, too breathless to laugh as orgasm crashed over her in long, satisfying waves.

Tension ebbed away from her, leaving Pepper floating free but still anchored to the bed by the warm weight of Natasha's body. Stretching from the tips of her fingers to the arches of her feet, Pepper rolled her shoulder blades into the mattress, rocking gently with the aftershocks. A twinge from her hip alerted her to a certain over-thirty stiffness leeching into her leg, and she carefully swung it down from Natasha's shoulder before she couldn't. She hooked her foot behind the girl's knee and slowly opened her eyes to see Natasha staring down at her, something almost feral in her face.

Pepper's fingers twitched, wanting to brush tangled red hair out of her eyes, but she stopped herself. Jaw working, breathing hard, Natasha swallowed and squeezed her eyes closed; when she made to withdraw, Pepper grabbed her wrist. Those eyes slammed open, glittering in the dark, and Pepper grinned into their intensity. Holding Natasha's full attention and her hand in place, Pepper stroked her clit, aware of Natasha's hips grinding a hard counterpoint into the bed as she felt Pepper come again.

Releasing her wrist, Pepper didn't give Natasha's fingers the chance to slip away: she pushed. Kissing and biting at Natasha's mouth, Pepper pulled her up until she could rock against Pepper's thigh. They tangled onto their sides, Natasha's leg wrapped around Pepper's hip as her fingers crossed the tattoo on her ass, pulling her close to help, hungry again.

"More." In the dark, it was Natasha asking.

"Uh-huh." The feeling of Natasha spread hot and slick over her thigh drove Pepper forward, grinding hard into her as they moved with one feverish purpose.

It couldn't last, and it didn't, Natasha coming with a choked-off cry that rang in Pepper's ears like victory. She held her close as the dancer's hips lurched and ground against her thigh, rocking her through it, then as those muscles unknotted and Natasha collapsed, half into her, half into the mattress.

In the serenity after, Natasha accepted Pepper's head on her shoulder and ran her fingers down the taller woman's spine. "I don't suppose that window opens."

Mouth still too dry to laugh, Pepper hummed in response and replied, "Doubt it. I don't have any cigarettes anyway."

"Pity." She shifted under Pepper, feet burrowing under the rucked covers. "So, this meeting of yours. How early, exactly?"

"Not that early." She hooked one foot around the girl's calf, ran it up and down the muscle. When that old familiar melancholy rose up in her lungs, she breathed it out into Natasha's neck. "Don't get too comfortable. We're moving in a minute." Pepper trailed her fingers over Natasha's collarbone, down the slick valley between her breasts, stopping at the spider tattoo on her stomach.

"Hmm, bossy. I like it." Natasha stretched her arms over the pillow, brushing her fingers against the headboard, and pulled herself into a sitting position. Pepper admired her abs while she did it, then rolled over and kicked her long legs free of the bed, testing to see if she could stand. It took a couple of false starts, but she managed.

"This is what you were playing hooky from, before." It was a remark that could have been a question, if Pepper wanted to answer.

"Yes." She pulled a bottle of water from the minibar and took a long drink, grabbing another for Natasha as she returned to the bed.

"Suits and skirts and corporate events?" Natasha wrapped her fingers around the offered bottle but kept her eyes on Pepper.

"Privilege, power, responsibility." She finished the water, setting the empty bottle down on the nightstand as she straddled Natasha again. "More than I should have. And not a lot of recognition. It's good, and I'm good at it, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I need," Pepper draped her arms around Natasha's shoulders, playing with her hair while trying to put the feeling into words, "To play hooky, I guess."

Natasha didn't answer at first, tipping back her head for a long pull on her water, and then she just shook her head a little. "Whatever you need."

"Hmm," Pepper lifted her head enough to look at the ruin they'd made of the bed, reluctantly peeling herself away from Natasha, "Come on, get up. Nobody's sleeping in the wet spot tonight." The pristine sheets of the other bed were cold against her flushed skin as she slipped between them, but Natasha slid in behind her, fitting up against her back and wrapping around her limbs to help banish the chill. Her meeting was waiting four blocks and eight hours away. It could wait.


End file.
